


Heart

by Gingerwerk



Category: The Pacific - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Minor Character Death, really it's just a bunch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-04
Updated: 2014-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-11 03:26:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1168092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gingerwerk/pseuds/Gingerwerk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snafu thought his heart was dead as the stones they marched across. It takes one unnecessary death to prove to him that he's wrong about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart

**Author's Note:**

> One shot inspired by this gifset: http://hbowarshows.tumblr.com/post/75512987599/i-dont-know-why-you-bother-theyll-be-dead-in-a

* * *

A part of Snafu blamed Sledge for this, blamed him for the feelings he felt when he saw Hamm, sprawled on his back while a thick steam of blood escaped his mouth and slowly ran down his frozen face. Before Sledge, he didn’t talk to the newbies unless it was to heckle them, rarely acknowledged them if they weren’t under attack, didn’t even know their names. But Sledge, Sledge was the exception to the rules he had made and with that one exception more followed, like Bill Leyden and Hamm with two m’s.

 

Now, however, Hamm with two m’s now laid dead, on his back, on top of some rocks and mud while the rain poured down on him in buckets. He stared at Snafu with dead eyes and for a moment, Snafu felt something akin to shock, possibly even grief. But it was gone before he really had a chance to process it; Snafu Shelton didn’t grieve over the loss of some newbie replacement, that part of him had died long ago, long before Okinawa and replacements that didn’t look as if they could pass for adults.

 

As they sat in the deep, sinking quagmire of Okinawa while so much rain poured down on them that it was as if God himself were trying to drown them, or he would think that if he believed in God anymore, he thought back to his time on Cape Gloucester. He thought back to a time when he was forced to sit through a similar amount of torrential rain, back when he was one of the newbies with Burgin and De L’ Eau, back when he knew everyone’s name. If Cape Gloucester taught him anything, it was that it was easier to remember everyone who died when you knew their name and face. It also made things much more painful.

 

So he stopped. He stopped listening when people introduced themselves and barely acknowledged when someone else was introducing him to another man. His extent of care and worry over the new men only extended to them doing their job and them being where they were supposed to be. He didn’t care if they got killed, just as long as their foolhardy attitude didn’t get any more of his friends killed. No matter how many got killed, there would always be more to replace them; they were disposable to him.

 

All that changed though when Eugene Sledge walked into his tent that one day on Pavuvu with Bill Leyden and the other replacement that didn’t make it who name he didn’t know. He remembered how young and innocent they had looked, fresh faced and nervous, with pink, shaven faces that made them look like overgrown children shoved into military uniforms; he guessed to a degree they were.

 

He took pleasure in heckling the new guys, what with so little pleasure to have while stuck on some God-forsaken island in the middle of the South Pacific, but for whatever reason, he had taken particular pleasure in messing with Eugene; perhaps it was the way he reacted compared to the other replacements or perhaps it was the fact that Eugene looked the most naïve and innocent of them all.

 

If he had to put money on who out of the three replacements that walked into his tent that day would make it the longest, Snafu would have not put his money on Sledge.

 

Snafu had expected Sledge to be killed the second they hit land; it was part of the reason he had offered him a cigarette before they shipped off, He figured the kid at least  deserved a cigarette before he got killed. But no, Sledge hadn’t gotten himself shot or blown up on the beach or even as he moved inland. It had been the other guy, Sledge’s friend, who got shot right in the head as they attempted to cross the airfield. It had been Sledge though, who came back for him when he had been knocked flat on his back by an explosion. The guy didn’t have to come back for him, had no obligation, Snafu was just another soldier, wasn’t even Sledge’s friend, but Sledge had come back for him anyhow. It was just another reminder of how much better of a person Sledge was than him.

 

Perhaps it was that selfless, completely idiotic move that forced Snafu to latch onto Sledge and Bill Leyden by association; it was what caused him to dub Eugene ‘Sledgehammer’. By the time he was yelling at Sledgehammer not to cut the gold teeth out of the dead Japs mouth he knew he had gotten much too close and too invested in the guy. Those kind of ties only brought trouble and pain but he had gotten momentarily cocky and believed that if Sledgehammer made it this far, he’d probably be alright, same with Leyden.

 

When new replacements joined them as they left for Okinawa, Snafu was sure he would treat them with the same level of indifference and annoyance as he had other replacements. He had declared that he didn’t want to know their names because they would be dead within days and had given them his intense levels or sarcasm and snark with a cold shoulder to boot. But for whatever reason, Hamm with two m’s wiggled his way into Snafu’s brain. Hell, even fucking Kathy had managed to get into his brain somehow, what the hell happened to him?

 

The more he thought about it, Snafu realized that Hamm reminded him of Sledgehammer when he first arrived on Pavuvu all those months ago. He looked too young and innocent to be there with them but appeared eager to do his part in the war effort. He had wormed his way quicker and much easier into Snafu’s hard and cold heart than Sledgehammer had; he realized now that it was because Sledgehammer had been instrumental in softening his stone of a heart. Hamm fought back with his words and didn’t back down when Snafu put a bite into his voice. Like Sledgehammer had gone back for him on Peleliu, Hamm went after Sledge when he was so determined to get to Leyden after he had gotten hit. Snafu had gotten so attached he dared to ask where Hamm was from, even if it was partially for a source of distraction after a long day; he remembered how angrily Sledge had responded to his question. Sledgehammer was now nothing more than a bitter shell of the fresh eyed-kid who stormed the beaches of Peleliu but he sure as shit remembered how long it had taken Snafu to warm up to him.

 

 A part of him dared to think that maybe this kid would make it, just like Eugene had.

 

But it didn’t matter where Hamm with two m’s was from or how old he was or what his family was like back home, because he was dead now, killed by Jap bullets because Peck had broken down and alerted the enemy of their position. Damn kid died not because of his own ignorance or because shit happened and an enemy bullet or mortar had randomly gotten him. He died because of another guy who couldn’t cut it.

 

And as Snafu thought back to the image of Hamm’s cold, dead eyes as they stared at him sightlessly while blood ran down his upside-down face, he remembered why he didn’t get close to replacements, tried not to get close to much of anyone period, ever. People died or left, always would, the odds just increased a hundred-fold while in a warzone. And while he couldn’t really avoid being hit by a bullet or suffering from dehydration or being knocked to the ground by a mortar, he could avoid the deep pain that came with the realization that someone you knew and possibly even liked was dead.

 

Until today, Snafu was sure that there was nothing left in his heart, no sympathy, no compassion, no room for grief; he was sure his heart was dead and cold as a stone. However, today he learned that he had just enough of his heart left to feel pain over Hamm. As they packed up and moved out the next morning, he really hoped that that was the last of the heart in him.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are much appreciated


End file.
